


Titles: y'know I hate 'em

by NobodyOfficial



Category: Beetlejuice (TV 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Ableism, Body Dysmorphia, Depression, Gen, General law breaking, Mental Health Issues, PLEASE read these trigger warnings, Racism, Suicide mention, Swearing, Unrequited Love, big time, drug and alcohol abuse, everyone's human but it's kind of hell on earth AU, like excessive violent swearing, theyre all presented as the awful things they are but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2019-08-28 21:48:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,355
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16731240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NobodyOfficial/pseuds/NobodyOfficial
Summary: Do you ever watch an innocent, bit-of-fun kids show from the 90s and think 'hey! This should be a gritty sitcom-drama about people facing the disgusting reality of how capitalism has basically made every day feel like life in the Neitherworld?'You don't?Well, do you ever wish your favourite childhood characters had real-world problems thrust at them, like mental illness, poverty, and racism, rather than whether it's acceptable to turn into a giant boot or not?No?Well life's a huge disappointment, because that's what you're getting.Basically, BJ is an angsty lil con-artist who gets his neighbours, and his cousin once removed Lydia, into heaps of trouble while trying to figure out how to stop being suidial in an economy that would never allow him medication.~I'll probably re-title this at some point. I'm marking it as finished, but I'm trash, so I'll probably come back and ruin more episodes later. It's just in case I never have time to finish it. Current long chapter based on s4e2. This is nothing serious, just a kind of writing warm-up.





	1. Insp. by a drawing my friend did in my Christmas card

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to say sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this a while ago but didn't know how to make it the first chapter :'D Anyway, it's the only thing that isn't based on an actual ep, my friend just did a super cute doodle of Beej and Lyds in my Christmas card and it made me want to write this.

BJ hammered on the door.

He was sure this was the right address. It had been two months, so naturally BJ had lost the slip of paper he’d written it on, but there was something familiar about the large piece of shrapnel on the porch. It had grown since last time. BJ thought that perhaps it wasn’t a piece of shrapnel.

The officer had lost him somewhere in the woods. BJ had never run so fast in his life. In fact, BJ had never run before in his life. But he’d also never been caught dealing crystal meth before, and sprinting was preferable to yet another spell in jail.

His own apartment was too nearby, so BJ had fled to the only other place he knew: his dead cousin’s ten-year-old daughter’s house. There were no cars in he driveway, so really the knocking was just a precaution. BJ was planning to break in (again), eat half the contents of the fridge, then bolt before the Deetz arrived home again.

So he was incredibly surprised when the letter box cracked open and two tiny, brown eyes peered out.

“Hello?”

“Lyds, babes, you gotta let me in!” BJ hissed.

There was a long pause.

“Beetlejuice?”

“Actually it’s Betelgeuse, but that’s fine, everyone makes the same mistake.” He shuffled closer to the door. “Now can ya let me in?”

“Mm...” Lydia gave him a once-over through the letter box. “I don’t really know you. My parents aren’t home and I’m only ten.”

“What am I gonna do, kill you?” BJ laughed. He stopped when he noticed Lydia’s rabbit-caught-in-headlights look. “Nah babes, I’m kidding.”

“Are you going to sell me crystal meth?”

“Wha-“

“You have a pipe sticking out of your pocket.”

“Oh.” BJ stuffed the pipe out of sight. “No. I’m actually trying not to get caught with crystal meth right now. I get it if you don’t wanna let me in. Can I crash in the garden?”

The letter box snapped shut. BJ looked around, preparing to find another house to break into, or a large bush, when a bolt clicked and the door swung open.

“You can come in,” Lydia said. “But you have to leave before my dad gets home.”

“Nice babes, thanks,” BJ smirked, sauntering into the hallway. The walls were adorned with more horrifying paintings than last time, each depicting some sort of abstract shape BJ couldn’t have named even if he had payed attention in math.

“Your family has shit taste in art,” BJ commented, following Lydia through to the living room.

“My step mom painted them.” Lydia rolled her eyes. “We have to put them up, or she gets really defensive about her work.”

“Step moms: y’know I hate ‘em.” BJ took a chip from a bowl on the table and crunched it loudly. He immediately spat it back out. That was not a chip. That was popery.

“You don’t have to eat dried flowers,” Lydia laughed. “There’s food in the kitchen.”

BJ’s scams hadn’t exactly been going to plan lately, hence the selling of his personal supply of meth. It wasn’t like he was using the money to buy more meth (what was he? A millionaire?), he just wanted to be able to pay his water bill and maybe buy some rice. He’d even settle for - Satan forgive him - some vegetables.

The kitchen was, thankfully, art free. The floor was chequered black and white, a theme which continued in miniature on the tiled walls. BJ thought it would be a very aesthetic place to die; blood spattered across the white tiles, disguised by the black.

He glanced at Lydia and decided he should probably stop thinking about death.

“What can I take without your parents realising?” BJ dragged his eyes away from the tiles when he noticed half a birthday cake on the counter.

“Whatever you like. My parents don’t really notice anything.” She glanced at her blurred reflection in the refrigerator door.

“Anything?”

“Anything,” Lydia sighed.

“Great, I’m eating that entire cake.” He snatched up the cake box and a fork from the draining board. Lydia stood in the middle of the room looking dejected. “You’re a fab kid, babes, and your parents should notice that. If I’m ever not living in dire poverty-“ He stuffed his mouth full of cake, “yuh shud tolly come live wuth me.”

“Thanks... How’d you say your name again?”

“It’s fine, you can call me Beetlejuice.” BJ had never had the opportunity to ask his parents how the fuck they’d intended ‘Betelgeuse’ to be pronounced; for all he knew beetle-juice was correct. “Or BJ, that’s what everyone else calls me.”

“Alright.”

They drifted back into the living room, where BJ made himself at home on the couch. He surveyed the room. It was void of any of the family trinkets, photographs, or heirlooms BJ had expected. There was also nothing but the icicles on the windows to suggest Christmas was mere days away.

“It’s not very festive around here, Lyds,” BJ commented. “You celebrate Hanukkah?”

“No, it’s just-“ She shrugged, “My parents are really busy. They don’t have time for Christmas.”

“What?” Bullshit. Christmas was stupid and pointless and not worth the effort, true. But this wasn’t about having time for Christmas. It was about having time for your daughter. “That’s crazy. No one should be too busy for Christmas, c’mon.” He jumped up, leaving the cake on the coffee table, before remembering this wasn’t his house. “Where are your Christmas decorations?”

“We can’t decorate the whole house-“

“Nah, c’mon, just a tree or something. It’ll be fun.”

It’ll be fun. The last words BJ had heard before Lydia’s mother, only a couple of years older than Lydia at the time, had shoved him off the roof and onto the trampoline. And before the ice had broken on that frozen lake. And before that tree branch had snapped and he’d plummeted to the ground as she’d laughed.

Granted, each experience had been fun, if life threatening.

“Oh, alright then,” Lydia relinquished. “The decorations are in the attic. They’re not ours, I think the couple who lived here before us left them.”

“Ooh, free stuff! I love free stuff!” BJ eagerly followed Lydia up to the landing. “And attics!”

The Deetz’ attic was located up a narrow set of stairs, boxed in by walls on both sides. The door was locked, so Lydia took a key from a hook on the wall.

“Why do you lock the door if you’re just gonna keep the key there?” BJ asked.

“My parents think it’s haunted.” The door opened with a creak. “I wish it was haunted.”

“You should try spending a night in my roadhouse,” BJ said, because despite hating the sound of his own voice he could never shut up. “Several people have definitely died there. I’ve even seen some of them! Seem then die, I mean, not ghosts.”

“You live in a roadhouse?” Lydia’s captivated tone told BJ was she obviously picturing a medieval tavern or roman inn, not the splintered, uneven sign he’d carved into his door that read ‘BJ’s Roadhouse.’

“Nah. I live in an apartment block, but I call it a roadhouse. I’m hoping it’ll catch on.”

“You’re weird.” Lydia stepped over a pile of files and picked up a dusty cardboard box. “It makes me feel less... I don’t know. Awful.”

BJ took the box off her. “What makes you feel awful?”

“I don’t know exactly. A lot of things. School and my family and, just, things that happen inside my head. All I know is that I can’t get rid of the feeling.”

Lydia looked up BJ, doe-eyed and ready to receive some adult wisdom.

He patted her shoulder. “Same. Now, grab that tree. Wouldn’t be a commercial, capitalist Christmas without one.”

BJ headed back towards the living room with Lydia in tow, completely obscured by the tree box.

“Do you celebrate Christmas?” She called around the box.

“Nah.” BJ ditched the decorations beside the sofa and reacquainted himself with the birthday cake. “I’m Jewish.”

“Hanukkah-“ Despite Lydia’s careful placement of the tree it still toppled, smacking against the floor, “Then?”

“I’m not that Jewish.”

Pushing his hair over his shoulders, BJ dove on the unsuspecting Christmas box. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” He beckoned for Lydia to join him as he pulled out a small box tree lights, some slightly moth-eaten tinsel, standard red, green, and silver baubles, and an angel that looked like it would offer you crack and a blowjob for fifty dollars. BJ kind of liked it. There was also a plastic wreath, several Santa-themed door hangings, and small bunches of holly to decorate the house with.

“Look.” Lydia reached into the box and pulled out a plastic square with a string attached. “What is it?”

“Some kind of photo frame.” BJ squinted. The picture was dark and blurry; he couldn’t make out any faces.

“It looks like... You know when a lady is pregnant, and they take a picture of her baby? An ultrasound?”

“Oh yeah.” Now that Lydia had mentioned it, the white and brown smudges in the picture were vaguely baby-shaped. “D’you know who used to live here?”

“No. They were gone long before we moved in.”

BJ stared at the picture. He remembered Emily showing him an ultrasound of Lydia, practically identical to the one in his hand. He wondered if his own parents had had one of him. Not a print-out like this, of course, but a video on a screen of his tiny, curled up body, squirming to the beat of his heart. But they’d still given him up.

“It’s creepy.” He dropped the picture into the box. “We should leave it there.”

“No, I think we should put it up. I feel like we owe it to whoever’s decorations we’re using.” She pocketed the ornament. “Now help me with the tree!”

The tree was old, crushed, and smelled of musty plastic. It towered over Lydia; and BJ, though that wasn’t hard. And it weighed as much as a real tree.

BJ, who had limbs like cooked spaghetti, struggled to heave the tree upright. He jammed it into the stand with a huff, then stared up at the highest branches, at least a meter above his head.

“Alright, now, how’re we gonna do this,” he mumbled to himself while Lydia fanned out the lower branches. “Got a stool or something? Nah, too much effort.” He eyed Lydia. “C’mere kid.”

BJ grabbed Lydia and lifted her onto his shoulders.

“Hey!”

“While you’re up there, fix the top of the tree,” BJ chuckled. He wriggled the toe of his shoe under the light box and flipped it into his hands, then began to unravel the string of multi-coloured lights. He’d never decorated a Christmas tree before, but figured it couldn’t be that hard.

He was wrong.

“Are you sure the lights start at the top?” Lydia called down. “I don’t know how to get them to stick to the branches.”

“I dunno, um, just shove it on there. Pile it on. It’ll be fine.”

BJ lifted Lydia down again. The tree had a halo of lights clinging to its upper branches, with a sad trail leading to the bundle in his arms. He stuffed it into the bottom branches where it sat like a fat, colourful bird.

“Good enough,” BJ muttered. “Grab some baubles, Lyds.”

They decided against stringing the mangy tinsel around the tree, but BJ snapped off a length and offered it to Lydia. “For your hair. It’s festive.”

“I don’t think my hair’s long enough for that,” Lydia said, twisting a lock of her shoulder-length hair. “You should put it in yours.”

“Yeah?” BJ tied the tinsel into a loop. His hair was so knotted and greasy it probably would’ve stayed in a ponytail without the makeshift hair tie, but he humoured Lydia. It was refreshing not to have his lank hair hanging around his face for once.

“It looks good,” Lydia smiled. “Will you do mine?”

“Sure, Lyds.” BJ gathered all of Lydia’s hair on top of her head, like the stalk of a pineapple, then secured it there with tinsel.

Lydia patted it and giggled. “What’s this?”

“I don’t know, I dunno, I’ve never really done anyone’s hair before. I’ve got this, this kind of friend: Ginger. She does my hair for me sometimes. She’s annoying, but she’s really good at it.” Ginger despaired each time he hacked a portion of his hair off with scissors. Or, worse, a knife.

“That sounds nice. I can’t wait to live on my own.”

BJ thought about that. He’d always wanted to live on his own. His life had been crowded with classmates who weren’t friendly, guardians who didn’t guard him, and social workers who weren’t very social. He’d always been desperate to rid himself of them. But now he wasn’t just on his own; he was lonely.

“What do you do for Christmas, Beej?” Lydia asked, hanging another bauble on the tree. “If it’s not, um, all this?”

“Told ya, I’m kinda Jewish,” BJ replied.

“But you didn’t celebrate Hanukkah. Aren’t you doing anything with your family?”

“You’re all the family I’ve got, Lyds.” It was true. Since his parents had abandoned him he’d never met the rest of his family in Germany, and Lydia’s mother and grandparents were dead. He had no one.

“What about your friends, then?”

“Friends?” BJ would never dare call himself anyone’s friend to their face. That would only cause them unnecessary embarrassment. But alone with Lydia he was safe to call all the people who scarcely tolerated him friends. “Well, my best friend’s family is really Catholic, so he and his parents go back to France each year to see them. Ginger goes down to New Jersey to see the rest of her family; it’s a real shit hole there by the way, don’t go. And my other friend’s Native American, so they have actual holidays to celebrate rather than this made up crap. I’m just gonna stay home and mainline some vodka.”

“You should come round here.” Lydia snatched up a black box from the coffee table. “I could finally take some family pictures!”

“Is that-“ BJ watched intently as Lydia removed a camera from the box, “A Polaroid?”

“Uh-huh, it’s the most important thing in the world to me.” Lydia looked between BJ and the half-decorated Christmas tree. “Can I take a picture now?”

“No.” BJ continued quickly, before Lydia was too deflated, “I’ll take one, c’mere.” He beckoned Lydia over to the tree and took her camera, then held it out as far as his arm could stretch. “Think were in the frame?”

“Yeah, you can see what the picture will be like in the reflection, there.”

“Wow babes, you’re smart.” BJ pulled a silly face and pressed the shutter button. The camera coughed out a single small, dark square.

Lydia took the photo and shook it slightly, then just stared at the image. Her eyes grew rounder and she bit down hard on her tongue. She looked as thought some had just told her her execution began in an hour, a feeling BJ was incredibly familiar with every time he saw a picture of himself.

“No one’s ever let me take their picture before,” she murmured eventually. “Never mind asked me to be in it too. I guess-“ She cradled the picture in her hands as one would a particularly beautiful spider, “I guess I’m happy?”

BJ beamed. He smiled so hard his cheeks ached and teeth protested the prolonged oxygen exposure. He’d made someone happy. That never happened. Usually he made people the opposite of happy. And generally he was okay with that, but he didn’t think anything would ever feel as good as making a little kid happy.

“Well, uh, um-“ He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Good, yeah, that’s nice babes. I’m just gonna, gonna finish this.”

The tree looked like it was about to keel over from the sheer weight of its bauble-encrusted exoskeleton, but still BJ crammed the last couple of decorations between the branches. Lydia scooped up the angel with a wary frown. She passed it to BJ.

“I don’t think this should go on the tree,” he said.

“Agreed.”

“Can I keep it? I wanna put it in my friend’s fridge.” BJ could picture the glorious look of sheer terror on Jacques’ face when he returned from France to find a miniature, frosty prostitute in his fridge. It would be a shame he wouldn’t be able to witness the event, but at least he’d be able to hear his screams through the wall.

“I feel like I should warn you against that, but of course. What are we going to put on the tree?”

“Uuh...” BJ scanned the room. His eyes landed on a stack of bills beside the couch. “Here.” He snatched a couple from the bottom of the pile and began folding them. He’d once taken a three day origami course while in an ecstasy stupor, and though he couldn’t recall any details he had seemed to retain all the knowledge of how to fold origami.

He presented Lydia with something that looked far more like a ninja’s weapon than a Christmas star, but a star none the less.

“Wow, Beetlejuice. How did you learn to do this?”

“Eh,” he shrugged. “Just one of my many talents.”

“Put it on the tree!”

BJ could only reach a few inches higher than Lydia, even with heels on. He struggled onto the window ledge, gripped the wall for balance, then jammed the star on top of the tree.

“Done,” he proclaimed.

“No wait-“ Lydia dug her hand into her pocket, retrieving the small, plastic frame. “One more thing.” Carefully, she hung it on one of the few free branches.

BJ hopped down and sidled up beside her. “Now it’s done.”

To his surprise, Lydia grabbed his arm and hugged it. “Thanks, Beetlejuice.”

They sat against the wall, staring up at the Christmas tree like cult members at their leader. BJ pulled the cake tray back into his lap.

“Can I tell you a secret?” BJ whispered. The whispering was needless, but it made the whole thing seem more secretive; more fun.

“Sure. I don’t have any friends, so I can guarantee I won’t tell anyone your secret.” Lydia smiled, but it was a melancholy, morose smile no ten year old should’ve mastered.

“I’ll be your friend.” BJ patted the pile of hair he’d made on her head. “But that’s not the secret. The secret’s this: when I was a kid in school everyone would always celebrate Christmas. They’d go to each other’s houses to hang out, they’d exchange gifts, they’d go to parties, and kiss each other under the mistletoe, and call each other the next day to laugh about it.

“I never did any of that stuff. I always told myself it was because I’m Jewish, even though I’m not really that Jewish, and I just didn’t want to get involved with any of that Christian holiday bullshit. But really-“ BJ drew his legs up to his chest and rested his elbows on his knees, creating a pillow for him to lay his head on and gaze at Lydia. “Really it’s just ‘cause no one wanted me around. And I didn’t wanna admit how much that hurt.”

The sound of tires crunching gravel had BJ on his feet. He peered between the blinds. “Shit, it’s your parents.”

“Go out the back!” Lydia ushered him towards the kitchen.

“Oh man.” BJ stumbled and gripped his waist. “I feel like I’ve swallowed a fucking brick. Never eat half a cake, Lyds.”

“I wouldn’t, BJ,” Lydia laughed. “I wouldn’t. Now go quick, before anyone sees you!”

“Wait wait wait!” BJ wrapped his arms around Lydia’s shoulders and smushed her face into his chest. “You’re the best cousin once removed a guy could ask for. Any time you need to talk, or want to talk, you can come over to the roadhouse or call me. I was gonna scrawl my address on your bathroom wall but that’s kinda trashy. You can just look me up in the phone book.”

“Please come back for Christmas, Beetlejuice,” Lydia said softly. “I don’t want you to be alone. I, I don’t want to be alone.”

BJ felt like he’d been smacked over the head with a snow shovel, but in a good way. In a giddy, light-headed, near-miss-with-death kind of way. Lydia was the first person he’d met, since Emily, who wanted him around. And he was surprised to find he wanted her around, too.

BJ had never even considered having kids. They were loud, annoying, and rewardless; he knew because he’d been one once. But the thought of standing in front of someone, one hand on Lydia’s shoulder, and saying, “This is my cousin, Lydia,” filled him with a surge of pride. He wanted to make sure she got a better life than he’d had. Than Emily’d had. And for that he’d have to stick around.

“I’ll see what I can do, babes,” BJ grinned. Then he ducked out the door and into the woods.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Since this is now (hopefully) the first chapter: my tumblr is everyonewholovesmehasdied and I LOVE all Beetlejuice media, but especially the musical, so hit me up! I'm just updating this whenever I have a story finished; I'm leaving it marked as complete just in case life happens and I never bring it to a conclusion. And I know this is rushed and trashy, I'm not putting too much effort into it, it's just writing warm up/practise.


	2. Insp. by Raging Skull

It was exceptionally early in the morning.

Okay, maybe exceptionally was pushing it, but it was still early morning.

Actually, early was probably factually incorrect. It was morning.

No, that was a lie too. The digital clock on the bedside table had slipped into afternoon without BJ noticing, leaving him bundled up in bed far past the conventional hour. Or at least he had been until that God-awful, cacophonous, ear-shattering racket had begun next door.

Every couple of seconds the apartment shook and a sound like the firing of a circus canon hung in the air. Probably someone getting murdered. Hopefully someone getting murdered. But on the off-chance it wasn't, and was instead just a normal, every-day, horrifically loud (hold breath, shudder) hobby, BJ decided to pay his neighbour a visit and tell him to shut the fuck up.

Wrapping a duvet around his shoulders, BJ rolled off the bed and crawled over to the door like an oversized slug. He hauled himself up on the handle and opened the door (unlocked, of course. If someone wanted to murder him he wasn't going to stop them) then travelled the excruciating two meters to his neighbour's apartment. The door was such an obnoxious shade of yellow BJ found himself squinting.

He knocked loudly enough to wake the dead, and screamed, "Shut the hell up, you continental cu-"

The door opened before he could finish.

"Language, language," Jacques scolded, yanking him inside by his duvet. "Not in the corridor."

It looked like a robot had thrown up in Jacques’ apartment; the floor was littered with bolts and tools and strips of metal that would probably make good crowbars, but definitely weren't. BJ picked his way across the floor to the kitchen and grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge, taking a swig. He immediately spat it into the sink.

"What even is that?" He choked, cramming the offensive carton back inside the fridge and slamming the door.

"Soy milk." Jacques was tinkering with a large, weighted contraption in the middle of the room. BJ stalked over.

"Why would you even buy milk that wasn't chocolate? It's the best kind of milk." He leaned over Jacques’ shoulder and watched as he loaded more 10kg weights into a pulley system.

"It's full of fat."

"Good." BJ shoved Jacques aside and jabbed a finger at the contraption. "What the fuck is that?"

"Ah, mon invention," he smirked. "Watch this."

Squatting awkwardly, above the knee prosthetic stuck out to one side, Jacques scooped up a handle attached to a length of rope. He passed it to his non-prosthetic hand then screwed his face up, took a deep breath, and pulled. The rope hauled up a platform, which had a pole on it, on which were stacked several weights of varying sizes. After holding it up for a couple of seconds Jacque released the handle and the weights crashed back down, sending a shudder through the room.

"That's so loud," BJ yelled, though the room was now deathly silent. "Stop doing that, it's too loud! Why can't you just work out at the gym?"

"I can't," Jacques sighed, pushing the socket of his prosthetic hand more securely up his arm.

"Yeah, yeah, I got that, why?"

Jacques spent all his time at the gym, when he wasn't busy being the world's (second; that goddamned tap dancing!) most annoying neighbour. He worked at the gym, trained at the gym, drank juice at the bar with his friends at the gym. BJ thought it was dumb. But also admirable, to dedicate your life to something geared towards people with three more limbs than you, then have the balls to be better than all of them.

Jacques started, "Well, there is-"

"No," BJ interrupted. "If you're going to tell me a long story you have to buy me breakfast."

"But it's one p-"

"Breakfast!" BJ screamed. "Then story. Also, we're picking Lydia up from school."

~

BJ rolled a pancake up like a cigarette and crammed it into his mouth. Then he took a drag of his actual cigarette, much to Jacques’ disgust. "Alright," he said, leaning back languidly. "You can tell me about all your little problems now."

"Actually, it's just one big problem. One really big problem."

"My dick?"

"Your ego, more like," Jacques scoffed. "But no. It is Arnold Mussel-Ugger. He is a new trainer at the gym and everyone loves him. He has both his legs, BJ!"

"I can easily take care of that." He imitated chopping a tree down then turned to Jacque, glint in his eyes.

"Please do not dismember my new coworker," Jacques said, though he was smiling. "No, he is just... Just like you, actually."

"Fabulous. Hot as hell. Hilarious."

Jacques laughed hysterically, which for once BJ didn't appreciate. "I was thinking more along the lines of arrogant, loud, and infantile."

Reaching across the table, BJ plucked a grape from Jacques' fruit salad, then sat back and chucked it at him. "You're breaking my heart, babes. So what's your problem with this guy? Just ignore him like you ignore me."

"Alas, sacré bleu," Jacques coiled his hands into a dramatic, Shakespeare-esque pose, "I cannot. He has challenged me to a, uh, what would you call this? A muscle duel?"

BJ stared for a second. Frowned. "I have no idea what that is. Is there a prize?"

Everything should always be about money, in BJ's opinion. He was a conman, a bamboozler, an embezzler and, when a club would take him, a stand up comedian. Ever since he'd left high school (left, not graduated) he'd done nothing but scam people out of their hard-earned cash. His talent for trickery was so great that it afforded him to pay rent on an apartment, buy a car, pay a TV license, and even own two whole outfits. If he'd ever attempted to use his talents for honest means accounting firms from all over the city would've been queueing up to hire him, but a nine-to-five and food that hadn't come out of the microwave was too conventional for BJ. He kind of liked toeing the line between law-abiding citizen and criminal.

"Fifty dollars," Jacques said with a shrug.

"Then congratulations," BJ grabbed his hand and shook it aggressively, "On meeting your new manager!"

"No."

"Yes!"

BJ finished his cigarette and dropped the smouldering butt into Jacques’ orange juice. "C'mon, let's go get Lyds, then we're hitting the gym. I gotta meet this Arnold guy."

BJ took off, leaving Jacques to pay the cheque and hurry after him. His convertible, if you can call a car that doesn’t actually convert a convertible, was parked just around the corner, where it was less likely to be towed. He and Lydia had built it when she was just thirteen, and although it looked like a heap of junk it ran surprisingly well. Plus, it was Lydia’s pride and joy. BJ didn’t have the heart to trade it for an actual working vehicle.

BJ climbed into the driver’s seat (literally climbed. The car had no doors) and drummed his fake nails against the steering wheel as he waited for Jacques. They were slightly too long to be practical and far too red to be any help when he was picking pockets but BJ thought they made him look like he’d just torn a corpse apart with his bare hands. Y’know he loved it.

When Jacques finally arrived he struggled to swing his legs into the car, then coil them up below the dashboard. BJ slammed his foot down on the ignition before either of them were wearing seat belts.

“BJ, slow down!” Jacques begged, wrestling with a seatbelt that hadn’t worked since BJ had forgotten to attach it to the car.

“Y’know Lyds’ school is forever away, I’ve gotta bomb it.”

According to Delia and Charles, neither of whom BJ was related to, the city was akin to hell. Charles, Lydia had told him, had always been a nervous person, but after losing his first wife (and having to put up with BJ’s pranks practically every weekend) he was more skittish than ever. In the city he acted like every passerby was a dealer determined to sell him overpriced crack.

Delia, though a hardened city girl herself, spent all her time waxing poetically about how much better life in the country was, and trying to get Lydia to agree with her. She tried too hard and secretly, behind seven layers of sarcasm, BJ admired her for it. But she was all too easy to tease.

And Lydia? BJ’s only living relative? She was like the little sister he’d never wanted, but grown to love anyway. She was, for want of a better word, BJ’s best friend. So even though her parents basically sucked, her school was miles out of the city, and BJ had no legal responsibility to look after her they spent as much time as possible together.

BJ stopped Doomy, Lydia’s affectionate nickname for his car, just outside the school gates. Due to a string of what would technically be called crimes, namely tying his hair up and pretending to be a school girl, BJ was no longer permitted to enter the school grounds. He settled for blasting the horn repeatedly, despite the fact that lessons would be in progress for another five minutes. Jacques covered his ears.

“Stop! Stop!”

BJ paused in his assault of the horn as he saw Lydia running down the path. She tied her hair up as she ran, scooping it from the base of her neck to to pile it on the top of her head. When she reached the car she leapt effortlessly into the back, grinning.

“Hey Beej. They let me out early because my teacher said it could only be you making that much noise. Thanks!”

“No-“ BJ floored Doomy again, forcing Lydia back against the seat, “Problem, babes!”

“Salut, Miss Lydia,” Jacques said through gritted teeth.

“Hello Jacques! What's Beetlejuice dragged you into today?” Lydia leant against the back of Jacques’ seat, indifferent to the speed of the vehicle.

“Oh, he thinks he is my manager. He is not,” Jacques sighed.

“Shut up, yes I am. He's gonna give me fifty bucks.” BJ took both hands off the wheels to direct finger-guns at Jacques. Doomy veered off the road and Jacques lunged for the wheel.

“Yeah, hold that for a minute,” BJ said to him, turning round to grin at Lydia. “So did you put that spider-“

“BJ, I swear to the Lord, if you do not take this wheel off me you will find out just how heavy this prosthetic arm really is!” Jacques yelled. His upper arm was tensed to much that his prosthetic fingers were beginning to leave a dent in the steering wheel. He shook it out, allowing his hand to release the wheel as a grumbling BJ righted Doomy.

“You may as well just not have a hand then, fucking useless, fucking bitch, no that's mean, fuck.” He turned to Lydia again, this time keeping his hands on the wheel. “Sorry for saying fuck.”

Jacques smacked his head down against the dashboard.

~

The gym was located in the part of the city where government officials didn't live, or frequent, or even visit at all. Where crime was common, the sidewalks were paved with gum, and everyone knew Beetlejuice. So naturally it was run down, cheap, and oversubscribed. Jacques, the gym’s sole personal trainer, was literally the only thing it had going for it. That, and cheap fries.

“I'm gonna give all these skinny people such glares,” BJ said, leering at poor gym users as they passed by.

“Beetlejuice, that's not nice,” Lydia scolded.

“Well, it's not nice of them to be thin.” He stuck his fingers in his mouth, opening it wide, and pulled a face at a poor lady who just wanted to jog without getting stabbed. She fell off the treadmill and BJ chuckled.

“BJ!” Jacques grabbed hold of him and Lydia, pulling them behind a punching bag. “There is the man!”

Pushing Lydia in front of him so she could see, BJ peered out from behind the bag to catch a glimpse of what could only be a solid lump of muscle. He barely had limbs, or facial features, and BJ sniggered about the thought of him having no dick. Or a square dick. Now that would be interesting. He was just one giant block of muscle. And people seemed to love it.

BJ whipped back round to face Jacques. “Let me punch him in the face!”

“No-“ BJ leaned around the bag to yell and Jacques hurried to cover his mouth. “No! I am going to beat this man fairly.”

With a soft yelp, Lydia ducked back behind the bag and grabbed BJ’s sleeve. “I think he saw me!”

The thin flooring shook as Arnold approached. The trio made no attempts to make it seem like they weren't hiding.

“Ah.” Arnold grabbed hold of the punching bag and ripped it down, shattering the chain. “Jacques. I thought it was your day off. Are you-“ He flexed so hard his muscles sprouted muscles, “Muscling in on my territory?”

“I, I, aah…” Jacques fumbled, looking anywhere but at Arnold’s immense head.

“Hey buddy.” BJ took Lydia’s arm and gently guided her behind Jacques, then stood in front of both of them. “That's my client you're bothering. If you wanna talk to him you gotta talk to me.”

Looking up at Arnold felt like being in the presence of a horse, so BJ hopped up onto a gym bench. Arnold still towered over him.

“Little man,” his thick German accent made it sound like he was saying ‘beetle-man,’ but he spat the word out with so much disgust he may as well have been, “You do not belong here. Please, allow me to continue this friendly rivalry with my new coworker.”

“Friendly rivalry?” BJ poked Arnold in the chest; it felt like solid concrete. He switched to a poor imitation of Mats’ western accent, “Well, what I've been hearing is that you're making this here trainer uncomfortable and the likes.”

Arnold raised an eyebrow, regarding BJ with distaste. “All I ask is that your friend engages in a little competition, just to show the patrons here we can both do our jobs. And who can do theirs better.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever buddy.” BJ let his voice slip back to its grating American accent. “Jacques can kick your ass any day. But what have you actually challenged him to?”

“Everything a personal trainer should be able to do. Show their muscles off. Use some equipment.” His eyes flicked to Jacques and he smirked with such malevolence BJ was almost jealous. “Lift some weights.”

And he was strangling him.

BJ had leapt from the bench, latched on to Arnold’s back, and wrapped his arms into a trachea-crushing choke hold. “You fucking offensive, ableist, piece of shit, crap, bitch, dick, you even touch my friend and I'll, I'll, I’LL EAT YOU FUCKING EYEBALLS.”

The gym ground to a halt as all eyes turned to BJ and Arnold. There were soft mumbles and shocked glares, but no one really made any move to stop them. Who would? No one wanted their eyes eaten by the poorly dressed zebra-man.

Lydia was poised on her tiptoes, one arm slightly raised as if she wanted to break up the fight, but even she was frozen. Good. That gave BJ more time to try and knock Arnold unconscious.

With a roar Arnold dived forward, flipping BJ off his back and smacking him against the floor so hard he left a cartoonish print in the linoleum. Before he could scramble to his feet Arnold grabbed a handful of his hair, yanking him up.

“You are a disgusting little man,” he hissed.

BJ spat in his face. “Thanks!”

“Ugh.” Arnold tossed him back to the floor. “The sooner you are all out of my sight the better.”

“Just admit you hate disabled people and piss off,” BJ snapped. “Being a trainer is more than weightlifting, and my client is going to prove that to you.”

Arnold's lip curled. He laughed, deep and rumbling, then walked away.

“Oh shit.” BJ flopped forward onto the floor, grasping his back. Lydia knelt beside him. “He is just the worst. Dickheads: y’know I hate ‘em.”

“BJ, it's okay,” Jacques said as Lydia helped him up. “I will just let him beat me, then go back to doing my job.”

“No.” BJ grabbed hold of Jacques’ crop-top. “That won't do. You gotta beat that jerk. You can do anything.”

“Look.” Jacques pried BJ’s hands from his shirt. “I appreciate the sentiment, mon ami. I make a living off pushing my body to its limits, but it still has limits. I cannot lift anything too heavy, I cannot risk breaking my prosthetics. Sometimes I can't do everything, and that's okay.”

“But I can.” BJ didn't even give Lydia the chance to offer her empathy. “I can do everything!”

BJ was roughly 3% muscle and 50% microwave noodles, but he was one whole idiot who secretly cared about his friends, therefore was willing to do anything to protect them. He could lift some weights and wear deodorant if it would help his friend out.

“I'm sure you can, Beej,” Lydia said, “But what exactly do you mean by everything?”

BJ shrugged. “Lift some weights or whatever. All I have to break are my bones.”

“How will that help me?” Jacques asked.

“Am I the only smart person here?” BJ snapped. “Duh! Isn't it obvious?”

“Oh!” Lydia gasped. “I've got it!” She turned to Jacques. “Arnold challenged you to see how good of a trainer you are. You don't have to do anything, you just have to prove you can train someone else!”

“Me!” BJ reached down to scoop up a discarded weight from the floor, lifted it a couple of inches, then toppled over backwards. He jumped up, grinning as if nothing had happened.

“That is very kind, BJ-“ Jacques nudged the weight from the walkway with his foot, “But you have not exercised since the eighth grade.”

“That's fifth grade, actually. I'm probably due a heart attack.” He patted his chest proudly. “But you're probably a great trainer, right? And I've got, what? A month-“

“A day.”

“Oh. Well then I guess-“

“Oh, don't say it,” Lydia cringed.

“It’s showtime!”

~

BJ bit his tongue as Lydia tried her best to comb his hair, gathering it into something that resembled a ponytail. Jacques had leant him some wonderfully mismatched clothes from lost property (apparently you shouldn't exercise in a suit. Or sleep in a suit. Or wear the same suit every day) and he'd poured a bottle of water over his face in that way that serious athletes always do. He certainly felt serious.

“Normally,” Jacques was saying, “I would refer you to a therapist, not train you, but I know you can't afford that. It's even more important to take care of your mental health than your physical health.”

“I don't have mental health issues,” BJ scoffed.

Jacques raised an eyebrow. Lydia paused in her assault of his hair.

“What?” BJ growled. “I mean, just because I think about death constantly, have completely erratic mood swings, and wish I was a shape-shifting orb instead of a person, doesn't mean I have mental health issues.” There was also the fact that he smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day, spent a good, well bad, amount of time thinking about cocaine, and regularly had E in his pockets. And he hadn't been to the doctor’s for twenty years. And he had trouble sleeping. Was constantly hungry. Had permanent intrusive thoughts. Simultaneously had a desperate desire to be loved and accepted while rejecting any affection offered to him. But he was fine.

Lydia patted him on the shoulder. “All done. I think it suits you.”

Looking in one of the many mirrors that plastered the walls, BJ turned his head to the side to admire Lydia's handiwork. He cut his hair once every couple of years by tying it up just like this, then hacking the ponytail off with kitchen scissors. He was going to look like crap no matter what, may as well look like crap for free. However as much as he wanted to pull an ugly face and claim he looked just as awful as always he couldn't. Lydia looked so pleased with him.

“Thanks babes,” he mumbled, and she grinned at him in the mirror.

“Alors.” Jacques rose from the floor where he'd been struggling to assemble a set of weights. “We’ll start with this, just to warm up.”

BJ glowered at the bar, feebly endowed with ten kilogram weights on each end. He could easily lift that. What did Jacques take him for?

Gripping the bar loosely, BJ hoisted it up and sat it on his shoulders. There. That was easy! He had no idea what everyone what everyone was always complaining about, this working out thing was a breeze.

Then he bent to do a squat and his legs turned to jelly.

“Oh shit.”

BJ crumpled with the bar on top of him. He stared pathetically at the ceiling as Jacques and Lydia leaned over him.

“Are you okay?” Lydia asked.

“Maybe we should use the smaller weights.” Jacques grabbed a couple of handheld weights and offered them to BJ, who was still floored. “This is only going to work if you can bench press more weight than me. Which you cannot.”

“Don't worry.” BJ took the handheld weights, which were marginally easier to balance. I've got this. I'm the…” He grappled for a metaphor. “Hostess with the mostest.”

Lydia giggled.

“What?” Jacque frowned, bemused.

“Nothing. It's a thing. Shut up.”

BJ began doing curls with the weights, like he saw people do on the shopping channel. It ached, his elbows were creaky as old hinges, but also made him feel powerful, like he could punch someone in the face.

“Will I have a six-pack tomorrow?” He asked Jacques, cockily tossing one weight into the air and catching it again.

BJ liked the idea of being masculine and muscular. And of being tall and thin like Jacques. And impressively androgynous like Mats. And of letting his hair curl into its natural style like Ginger’s. He also liked the thought of being an aircraft carrier, or a carnival ride, or a giant shoe. Basically anything that didn't look like it had spent three months decomposing at the bottom of a lake (like he did).

“Eeh, I think not,” Jacques replied. “But that is okay, you're cute.”

Cute! Cute? What the hell did Jacques think he was? Well, actually he'd just stated that very plainly: he thought he was cute. Which was…

BJ caught himself smiling and hurriedly replaced it with a scowl.

That scowl remained firmly plastered to BJ’s face for the rest of the day. Jacques presented him with progressively heavier weights, forced him onto the treadmill (that was short-lived. BJ’s lungs were practically rags), and even made him drink something that wasn't soda. By the time the individual weights were back in BJ’s hands his arms felt like a ghost’s.

BJ allowed the weights to thud to the floor so he could press his hands against his forehead. It felt like his skull was shrinking, crushing his brain. His vision was blurrier than usual (he really needed to see an optician) and the nausea that had only just subsided from eating a pile of pancakes was back with reinforcements.

“I'm gonna, I'm gonna go throw up real quick,” he panted, “Then I'm all yours.”

BJ only made it two steps across the gym before his whole body convulsed and bile burned in his throat. He grabbed a sack of boxing gloves and doubled over.

For a moment everyone in the gym made the collective decision to pretend they were deaf.

By the time the sun had set BJ was certain he had died. This was hell (he was obviously going to hell) and the next day he'd have to wake up and do it all over again. He had to start learning how to say no to cash.

“Can I drive home?” Lydia asked gleefully as they left the gym. “I'm nearly sixteen, and I can't be any worse than you.”

It was a tempting offer, BJ felt like an overstretched rubber band, and Lydia was an astounding video-game driver. However she had only just turned fifteen and Doomy wasn't exactly the smoothest start up car.

“I'll take you driving next weekend,” BJ promised. “But I think your parents want you home alive tonight.”

~

BJ parked Doomy in front of an abandoned warehouse, on which he'd spray painted ‘Private Parking.’ Delia had given him hell for picking Lydia up from school, which she had suppose to do, then for not calling her to say he'd done so, thus allowing her to run around the countryside like a beheaded chicken trying to find out where Lydia had gone. He'd shrugged, said it wouldn't happen again (a promise he'd already broken several times), then headed home.

He felt like a rag doll. His muscles were stretched and floppy; his head clouded with cotton. As soon as tomorrow was over he would gleefully go back to moving as little as possible. Jacques only needed his wheelchair twice a day, maybe he could borrow it? That would probably lead to some successful scams.

Rounding the corner, BJ almost walked straight into the man leant against his apartment block. He staged to one side, but before he could turn to yell, “Watch out, bastard!” the man had him by the collar.

“Little man.” Arnold. Who else could lift him clear off the ground?

BJ plunged a hand into his pocket and produced a pocket knife, extending it to Arnold’s throat. “Fucking try it,” he threatened.

Arnold chuckled. “You are like a weevil. So small, so annoying. Do not try to fight me.”

That had never stopped BJ before.

“I would like to offer you a, what is the word? An armistice. A truce.”

“Fuck that.” BJ kicked him hard in the crotch and Arnold released his jacket. “You're just scared because you're a big, big, biiiiig,” he dropped his eye line to Arnold’s pants, “Fraud, and you know Jacques’ better than you.”

“No.” A quick tug of the arm and BJ found himself pressed against the wall, Arnold leering over him. “I do not want to hurt you. You are small and soft, like a woman. I do not hurt women.”

“Well,” BJ was struggling to breath in any air that hadn't been exhaled by Arnold first, “That's sexist. My little Lydia could fuck you up if she wanted to.”

“Shut up.” Arnold crushed BJ further into the wall, pressing on his collar bone. “I do not want to compete with you. It is your friend I want to publicly show up. Drop out. Let Jacques compete with me.”

“No,” BJ said again, this time with a bite to his voice. “I'm not going to let my friend down. Maybe I feel sick, half dead, like some kind of Zombie-Jesus, but there is nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing at all, that you can do to make me-“

Arnold held out a card. “Free ice cream.”

“Done.” BJ snatched the card and ducked beneath Arnold's arm. “I will not be seeing you tomorrow.”

He was the worst, but he knew it.

~

It wasn't that BJ wasn't used to letting people down. He'd done plenty of that in his life, and recently too. And it wasn't like he hadn't let Jacques and Lydia down on multiple previous occasions. Multiple, multiple previous occasions. But no matter how many times he had to, yes had to, act like an absolute bastard it didn't get any easier.

To make matters worse, Lydia was already at the gym with Jacques, helping him set up equipment. God, that kid was the best thing that had ever happened to him and he'd already disappointed her so much. He'd always thought it would ruin her, hanging out with him, corrupt her like he corrupted everything else. But he'd known her five years now and she was still, still… BJ didn't have the words. A miracle. A genius. A single drop of rain in a desert. He was loath to bring anymore darkness to her life.

“Beetlejuice!” She jumped up when she saw him, hurrying over. “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, I can't wait to see you show this show-off up! He's so out of line I'd like to strangle him myself.”

“Well, the position’s all yours, babes.” Jacques had joined them now, grinning and oblivious.

“What do you mean?”

“I quit. I'm done with this shit. Show’s over.”

The smile slipped from Lydia's face. “Beetlejuice…” She stopped. She'd given this speech a hundred times before. It didn't matter why he'd changed his mind; what use would it be to give it again? “You'll be on your own.” Leaving him with Jacques, she returned to her previous task. BJ couldn't take his eyes off her ponytail.

“What have you done now?” Jacques asked with a playful smile. “Teenagers, non?”

“No,” BJ sighed. “No.” He stared down at his shoes. One of them had a hole in the toe. “You're on your own today. I'm not competing.”

“Wha-“ For a moment Jacques looked confused, then he was holding BJ’s face, turning it side to side. “What did Arnold do to you? Did he hurt you? Are you okay?”

“Fine.” BJ flapped Jacques away from him. “I'm fine. He didn't touch me. I just don't want to.” Not wanting to seem like a total loser, BJ pulled the diner card from his pocket. “And Arnold gave me free ice cream.”

Jacques’ face looked so broken his skull beneath was surely shattered. He seemed on the verge of tears, and BJ didn't want to deal with that. If it was anything like one of his crying fits he'd probably recommend block evacuation.

“You sold me out for ice cream?” He said softly, unable to meet BJ’s eyes.

“I'd sell you out for half a trash-taco, babes,” BJ replied. “I'm everything but loyal.” Betrayal pretty much came as a standard for anyone entering into a friendship with BJ. “Life’s a huge, stinking disappointment. Get used to it.”

“I am.” Jacques’ voice was so sharp it made BJ shudder. “I am very much used to the disappointments of life. But you're my friend, Betelgeuse. And life’s normally a little less disappointing when you're around.”

Something snapped inside BJ’s head. He could feel it slipping out of his control, was perfectly aware of how irrational he was being, but he couldn't stop it. It was fiery, fast, and all-consuming. “You goddamned, goody-two-shoes, fucking bitch, dick, motherfucker, shut up! Just shut up! I can't- I don't-“ He was breathing so quickly. Or he wasn't breathing at all. “I gotta-“ He coiled his hands into fists, false nails biting into his palms. “I gotta go.”

BJ was halfway to the door when Jacques grabbed his wrist. His facial features had pieced themselves back together into a mask of teary-eyed sadness. He ran his thumb softly over BJ’s forearm as he spoke. “Wait.” Softly. “I want to say sorry, before you go.”

BJ could feel his heartbeat again. It was too heavy and unsteady; he was certain with each beat the next one would crack his ribs.

“I agreed to be your trainer, which means I agreed to look after you. I did not, I pushed you and made you sick, and I'm sorry. I completely understand why you want to leave.”

Fuck. Shit. Fuck, shit, damn. He was so nice. Too nice. All he could do was crush nice people’s good intentions. Fuck.

BJ snatched his wrist back and left.

~

‘You'll be alone.’

That's what Lydia had said. Not ‘you're alone’ or ‘you're on your own’ or anything present tense. You will be alone. You're not alone now, you're just kind of a dick, but keep it up and one day you will be alone. Maybe that's what she'd meant. Or maybe in her frustration she'd just misspoken.

BJ took another spoonful of ice cream and raised it halfway to his mouth, then paused. He'd let his friends down for this? Of course he had, it was delicious. But Jacques was always so nice to him. Even when he played the violin at three am. Even when he stole his newspaper from the doorstep. Even… Even when he left him to be bullied, after promising to help him, just for a few bowls of ice cream.

He hung his head in shame.

“What's wrong, BJ?”

His head shot up and he looked around the diner for the source of the squeaky voice. It was practically empty, anyone who was a worthwhile person was at work, and the sever looked far too engrossed in her dead-eyed stare to have spoken. He dropped his eyes to the bowl again.

“Hey! I'm talking to you, mister!”

“Huh?” BJ shifted his gaze to the bowl of ice cream, then shot back in shock when it sprouted a pair of eyes and a tiny mouth. “What the fuck?” He mumbled to himself. “Fuck, fuck, what the actual- What?”

“Don't be scared!” The ice cream squeaked. “I'm just here to help!”

“O-okay.” BJ placed a hand on his racing heart and leaned forward again. “I just ditched my friends in a difficult situation, like I always do, and I feel bad. What should I do, talking ice cream?”

“I think you know what to do, BJ.”

“Yeah.” BJ picked up a spoon and angled it at the bowl.

“No!” The ice cream squealed. It eyes spread distractingly wide as it continued to melt. “You should go and help your friends!”

“Oh.” BJ lowered the spoon. “Yeah, that makes much more sense. Thank you, talking ice cream.”

He started to get up, then paused. What was he even doing, he through, grabbing the ice cream bowl off the table, leaving free ice cream behind?

The bowl shrieked as he tipped it up, drinking the melted chocolate. He was probably taking too much ecstasy.

~

BJ knew he'd have to do a walk of shame back into the gym, but thankfully he was all too familiar with those. He was good at sex, as good as a person who claims they're ‘good at sex’ can be, but no one wanted to wake up beside him in the morning. He didn't blame them; if he looked like shit in the dark then he'd seem practically dead in the light of day.

Before entering the gym BJ stood on his tiptoes and peered through the glass window in the door. There was a small gathering surrounding Arnold and Jacques, who had his shoulders hunched up to his ears as Arnold flexed for the crowd. BJ was suddenly glad he was a chubby loser who looked like the class clown when he tried to show off; that much arrogance was too much even for him.

Alright. Time to make an entrance.

BJ smashed through the doors like a train wreck. Without even stopping to bask in the attention he pushed through the crowd and marched over to Jacques.

“I think I've got this,” he said, pretending to polish his nails on his jacket-breast.

“No offence,” Jacques grabbed his face a little harder than he liked to be grabbed and looked down at him, “But you are very small and you are not good at this.”

“Oh, I know.” BJ pulled his face from Jacques’s hand and stuck one of his fake fingernails to the back of his mouth. Then, giving an awkward, wide-mouthed smirk, he bit it off.

“Shit-“ Lydia gasped.

“BJ!” Jacques snatched his hand from his mouth. “What are you doing?”

“Trust me, babes.” BJ proceeded to bite the tips off the rest of the fake nails on his right hand, each one detaching with a sickening snap and being spat to the floor with a soft click. “I am good at this!”

He balled his hand into a fist, spun, and punched Arnold right in the temple. He crumpled to the floor like an accordion. The gym broke out into a riot.

“Yes!” BJ cheered. “Don’tcha just love that?”

He held his hand out for Lydia to high-five, which she did enthusiastically, but Jacques was regarding Arnold’s prone body nervously. “Beetlejuice,” he mumbled, “If I get fired…”

“Then you'll get hired somewhere else,” Lydia interjected quickly. “Because you're amazing, Jacques. Anywhere would be lucky to hire you.” She glared at BJ. “Isn't that right, Beetlejuice?”

“Yeah, you're great or whatever,” he muttered, staring at the floor. “And I'm sorry, or, or something.”

Jacques placed a hand on BJ’s shoulder in a way that dangerously resembled a hug. “I am sorry, I didn't quite catch that.”

BJ groaned. Pulled a face. Hid his head in Jacques’ shoulder. “I'm sorry I was such a dick. I'm a dick. It was a dick move. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Eeh, not exactly,” Jacques cringed. “But it will do.”

“I'm proud of you, Beej,” Lydia said, wrapping her arms around her waist.

BJ made feeble attempts to push them both away. “Stop hugging me,” he laughed. “You're making me happy, and I like being miserable.”

“You love us.” Lydia released him, patting him on the arm, and peered down at Arnold, then up to Jacques. “Do you think maybe he's just a racist?”

“Oh.” Jacques considered his non-prosthetic arm, then Arnold’s hopefully-not-dead body. “That makes a lot more sense.”

“Is-“ BJ drew his foot back and angled it at Arnold’s head. “Is that worse?”

Jacques yanked him backwards before he could find himself on trial for murder. “No, no, I can get him fired for being racist.”

“But not for bullying you because you have prosthetics?” Lydia questioned.

“My boss is Mexican, but she's not disabled. It, as BJ would say, is pretty shitty. But it could be worse.”

“That's still awful.”

“Yeah,” BJ added. “Still pretty shitty.” He eyed Arnold’s body; his wallet was in the back of his gym shorts. His ass looked good.

BJ leaned down, took fifty dollars from Arnold’s wallet, then proudly presented it to Jacques. “You win, I guess.”

“I thought, as my manager, you got to keep 100% of the profit,” Jacques smirked. BJ knew he wouldn't chastise him for stealing; anyone who was above stealing from racists didn't get to hang out with BJ and Lydia.

“I wasn't a great manager.” Bored, the few gym member who had gathered for the fight began to disperse. “It's all yours.” BJ paused to glance at Lydia, who gave him a smile and a thumbs-up. “And hey, uh, if you want me to stick around and help people with the weights and stuff, since you're short staffed-“ He kicked Arnold in the shoulder, causing him to groan slightly. At least he wasn't dead. “Then I'd be more than happy to. Not, not that I'm not super busy doing important things like, like…” Shit! BJ never did anything important!

He looked back to Lydia for help, but she was motioning for him to cut it out, so he just stopped and instead tried to figure out if there was a way to stop blushing.

Jacques was laughing and shaking his head. He's kind of alright, BJ thought, for a person who isn't Lydia. Kinda of funny, and kind of nice, and kind of more than tolerable. It kind of made BJ feel sick to the stomach, but in way that he kind of liked.

“That is most kind of you, BJ,” he said. “Who knows, maybe this could be the start of course first career, eh?”

“Unlikely.” BJ reached down absently to help Lydia lift a bar back onto the rack. He barely noticed the weight. “After today, I'm never getting out of bed again!”


	3. Insp. by The Wizard of Ooze but only kinda

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So y’know when kids cartoons do kinda awkward, kinky things and you’re like: no, this is for tiny minds! Well, I fixed it with some murder! I’ve only rewritten the ending, not the whole thing.

BJ ran his tongue along his bottom lip. It tasted coppery and sharp, like fresh blood. When he pursed his lips they stuck together, as if he was wearing cheap lipgloss.

 

The setting sun caught a puddle by BJ’s feet and he glanced down at his reflection. The water was tinted red by the sun, but that aside his appearance was unaltered.

 

Raising a hand to wipe his face, BJ noticed something strange about his fake nails. Their usual crimson extended past his nails, down his fingers and hand and forearm. He began to lift his other arm to check it for the strange, red substance but found he had a meat clever clutched in his hand. With a yell, he hurled it away.

 

The meat clever flew through the air, but it was what it flew over that gave BJ a nauseous feeling in the pit of his stomach.

 

Littered around the square, surrounding BJ, were hundreds of massacred bodies. Their blood flowed between the cobblestones, forming rivers and lakes-

 

BJ‘s eyes flicked back to the puddle at his feet. It wasn’t water reddened by the sun, but a pool of blood. So that meant...

 

BJ grabbed a handful of hair, yanking it in front of his face. It was frizzier than usual, but what made BJ recoil in horror was the chunks of warm flesh that were matted into it. He ran his fingers through his hair, over and over, trying not to listen as human remains hit the ground.

 

He began to panic. Who’d done this? Were they looking for him now? How had he gotten covered in so much blood? The stench of warm, mutilated bodies knocked him sick.

 

The doors to the courthouse opened and Lydia rushed out, pulling up short when she noticed the massacre. She glanced between the prone bodies and BJ, stood straight and dripping with blood. Her brow crinkled. Her eyes widened.

 

“Beetlejuice...” Her voice was despairing. “What have you done?”

 

“Nothing!” BJ yelled. His voice broke; he was hysterical. “I don’t know what’s happening!”

 

Lydia didn’t seem to be able to hear him. “You’re covered in blood,” she said tentatively. “Did you... Did you kill these people? BJ?”

 

How did she think he could’ve done this? Was he really so twisted, so violent, so untrustworthy? He opened his mouth to reply and blood spilled down his chin. “This wasn’t me Lyds, I swear, I’d never-“

 

He looked around at the bodies. Some were children, younger than Lydia. Their throats were cut open, eyes wide and glassy like they would’ve been as they died. Their parents, bloodied and limp, lay with arms protectively wrapped around their children.

 

“I could never do this!” BJ curled his hand into a fist in frustration.

 

The meat cleaver.

 

It had been curled in his fist when he came to his senses.

 

BJ had an atrocious memory. He’d blocked out traumatic memories from his childhood, depression made sure he spaced out for a few days ever so often, and ecstasy wasn’t exactly a memory enhancer.

 

And when BJ got angry, boy did he get angry. Furious. Incandescent. He flew into a fit of blind rage, acting without thinking, usually with disastrous consequence. But murder?

 

“Beetlejuice.” Lydia was crying. “Beetlejuice, why?”

 

“I didn’t-“ BJ raised his hands in surrender, but found the meat cleaver was back in his fist. He gaped at it. Blood dripped from the blade, across the handle, and onto his hand. He cast it away again.

 

But his aim was off. His hands shook violently, and the courthouse seemed to have drifted further left than he remembered.

 

The meat cleaver spun towards Lydia’s head.

 

BJ tried to breath. Every time he choked down a lungful of air he felt more and more like he was suffocating. This had to be a dream. It had to be. This couldn’t be happening. It-

 

-

 

BJ opened his eyes.

 

Everything was muted suddenly. Dark. In front of BJ was the bottom of a dresser under which a large spider had made itself at home.

 

BJ tried to roll over but found his arms glued to his sides. He struggled, flopping around like a fish as he tried to escape the spike-less iron maiden. Eventually he managed to flip his hair from his eyes and realised he was just in a sleeping bag.

 

Sliding his arms out and untangling his body, BJ saw that he was in Lydia’s room, camped out beside her bed. He squinted through the darkness, unable to make out the time, and decided to wake Lydia anyway. He’d just had the most disturbing dream.

 

Tugging gently at the covers to avoid startling her BJ whispered, “Lydia. Lyds. Wake up.” His rough voice carried in the darkness and BJ cowered beside the bed, afraid he’d wake her parents. He didn’t recall asking to stay over - when he did he usually slept in the guest room - so Lydia must have snuck him in.

 

“Lyds!”

 

Lydia stirred, blinking blearily and pushing the covers from her shoulder. “Wha-“ When she saw BJ she screamed.

 

“Hey, hey, it’s just me, babes!” He whispered emphatically, flapping his hands to indicate she should lower her voice.

 

“Who are you?” Lydia yelled. She leap out of bed and snatched up a copy of Hamlet from her bedside. It was a chunky volume. She held it aloft. “I swear, if you don’t get out of my room right now-“

 

BJ had scrambled backwards; the dresser was now against his spine. Lydia must still be half asleep. How could she forget him?

 

She advanced. “Get out, you creep!”

 

BJ tried to back up ever further, but the drawer knobs were indenting his back. He pressed against it and a pile of fabric fell into his hands: Lydia’s poncho. Only it wasn’t its usual vibrant red, but a dull grey. Everything, in fact, was grey.

 

Someone was dreaming, but it wasn’t Lydia.

 

-

 

BJ woke up gasping.

 

His heart rattled his ribcage as he shot up, eyes wildly scanning the room. The ceiling was low and cracked, the floor littered with clothes and old food, and a gentle, red glow from the side of the bed told him it was one am. He was home and he was awake.

 

From the other side of the single brick wall BJ could hear the soft murmurs of the television. It was punctuated, ever so often, by a comment from Jacques, and then a response or a laugh from another man. A friend, maybe. Or a date.

 

In the hallway BJ could hear Mats unlocking their apartment door, presumably escorted by their girlfriend. They said something with particular vigour and she laughed, then the door closed with both of them inside.

 

BJ looked down at the bed. The covers were crumpled at the base of it, tangled around his feet. Suddenly aware of the cool air, BJ reached down and pulled them back over his legs.

 

His flannel pyjama shirt was twisted, stuck around his neck. He smoothed it out, but the bottom still didn’t quite meet the top of his pants. Maybe he needed new pyjamas? He couldn’t afford them. Maybe he just needed to lose weight? He couldn’t be bothered. Maybe he should just hang himself with the goddamned pyjamas and allow Lydia to find him, neck snapped and dangling from the ceiling, because God knows Jacques would never bother to visit now he had his new boyfr-

 

No. No, that was selfish. And mean. And he didn’t even know if was true. And that would be especially unfair to Lydia.

 

BJ lay back and tucked the covers under his chin. He gripped his waist; it felt like a nuclear bomb had been detonated in his stomach.

 

He stared at the ceiling and sobbed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


	4. Insp. by Journey to the Centre of the Neitherworld (but only a bit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Told y'all I'd be a while with this. I'm nearly done with a proper length chapter, but I'm sure you can tell by now these are all weak and half-assed. I'm just using it like a writing warm up, and posting it because I'm trash!
> 
> Anyway: flashback time! Our trash bby is 14 years old and hanging out with Jacaues, who I'd die for.

He was gonna kill himself.

That would teach them. That would wipe the dumb smirks right off their faces. He could picture the assembly now: the principle pretending he was at all fond of BJ, breaking the news to his fellow pupils that he’d taken his own life. We don’t know why, he’d say. He was always such a happy kid.

And man, oh man, how their faces would drop, because they’d know. They’d know it was all their faults. They’d have to spend the rest of their lives knowing they were murders.

But what if that was what they wanted? Did they, could they, really hate BJ so much they wanted him dead?

Well that just wouldn’t do. He’d show them. He’d show them all! He was fat, huh? A psychopath? He’d butcher them like a, like a, like a motherfucking butcher! And eat their corpses! And no one, no one, would ever mess with BJ again.

He smiled slightly through his tears, which were beginning to form a small pool on the table. Yeah. That would be nice.

“Hallo BJ.”

BJ raised his head a little, nudging his floppy fringe from his face, to find Jacques sitting down next to him. He’d never thought of them as friends, Jacques was the insanely hardworking star of every sports team and BJ was, well, garbage. He couldn’t play any sports, he was behind in all his classes, and he even found reading a struggle. And now especially, sobbing onto the table with his lunch poured on his lap, he wasn’t exactly the picture of popularity.

“Are you okay?” Jacques asked, patting his shoulder.

BJ instinctively jerked away from the touch. “Fine,” he snapped. “I just feel sick, that’s all.”

“Sick? Would you like me to get the nurse?” Jacques started to get up.

“No, no.” BJ shook his head. His hair fell back over his eyes. “It’s, uh, it’s not that kind of sick.”

“Oh.” His eyes flashed to the pile of fries in BJ’s lap. “Did someone, uh-“

“Doesn’t matter,” BJ growled, shoving cold pizza from his lap onto the floor. “It’s nothing, I’m fine, I totally don’t want to stab myself violently and repeatedly in the stomach.”

Jacques gaped, eyes darting around the cafeteria as he tried to formulate a suitable response.

BJ also looked shame-faced. He’d terrified many potential friends away by spewing his suicidal thoughts out like a geyser. Now all he had to do was wait for Jacques to cringe and drift away.

“Ey!” Jacques grabbed hold of BJ’s hand. His prosthetic was cold and surprisingly soft. “Come with me!”

Before BJ could even protest Jacques yanked him up out of his seat, through the cafeteria, down the hallway, and into the library. The dreaded library. It was filled with two things BJ despised with a passion: books and silence.

He huffed as Jacques lead him through the shelves, eyes scanning the titles. They were still holding hands and BJ was terrified someone would catch them. He wondered if it would still be classified as murder if Jacques strangled someone with his prosthetic arm. He wondered who’d get the jail sentence if _he_ strangled someone with _Jacques_ ’ prosthetic arm. He thought he should probably stop thinking about sending Jacques to prison, since he was being so kind.

“Ah!” Jacques exclaimed. Finally letting go of BJ’s hand, he stretched up and plucked a book from the shelf. Depositing it in BJ’s arms, he raced off to the next row.

BJ turned over the book. It was green with red text, the cover engulfed by a jungle. The title, ‘Lord of the Flies,’ was intriguing. BJ was a huge fan of the British gentry. And flies.

“BJ, get over here!” Jacques stage-whispered from an aisle over. “I have more novels for you!”

BJ ambled around the shelf and was immediately ambushed by Jacques, shoving two more books into his arms. ‘The Three Musketeers’ and ‘Master and Commander.’ For once BJ wasn’t entirely repulsed by books. There was an attractive number of swords on one cover. To BJ any number of swords was an attractive number.

“I think this is plenty-“ BJ started, but Jacques had already rushed off again.

He mumbled, “De plus, de plus,” over and over as he scanned the shelves. He gasped as something caught his eye and snatched it down from the shelf.

“Zeesus ma favoreet novelle, bee-jay,” Jacques garbled, slamming it down on the table. He was practically vibrating with excitement.

“Journey to the Centre of the Earth,” BJ read over Jacques’ shoulder. “Alright, alright, cool. Why do I have to read it?”

“There are, ah, mon dieu, there are not exactly an abundance of novels out there about people like me. Mixed race, disabled,” he lowered his voice until it was scarcely a whisper, “Gay. But this-“ With a sappy smile, Jacques patted the book’s cover, “This is my favourite book. It’s about adventure and courage and family. When I read this I can pretend the characters are whoever I want them to be. Otto and Hans can be in love. Axel can be mixed race. Gräuben can have prosthetic limbs. And when I read it I feel like, like, like I can do anything. Be anyone. I want you to experience that too.”

“Oh.” BJ’s throat felt tight. “O-oh.” He wiped his face quickly. “That’s nice Jacques, thanks.” Quickly directing Jacques’ attention away from him, he pointed to the other small pile of books. “What are these for, then?”

“These are, if I remember correctly, books about people like you-“

“Assholes?”

“Ha, no BJ. People who are, uh...” He squirmed and stared at the table. “I, I do not want to offend you. I cannot say.”

“I’m not offended by shit, Jacques,” BJ scowled. What did he think he was going to do? Kill himse- No wait, he probably would.

Jacques still looked like he was regretting his own birth. He wrung his hands so violently BJ feared he’d pull his arm clean off. “First off I want you to know that I like you very much, and I do not wish you to go stab yourself. D’accord?”

With a shrug BJ grumbled, “Can’t stop me from stabbin’ myself but whatever, whatever.”

“You are, uhh-“ Jacques gestured vaguely to BJ, then ducked and closed his eyes as if he was about to be hit, “Kind of chubby?”

BJ burst out laughing.

Jacque straightened, confused. “What?”

“You think I’m chubby?” BJ laughed, doubling over and leaning his hands on his thighs. “Oh man, oh buddy, that’s golden, babes, golden!”

“W-what?” Jacques repeated with an even more perplexed look.

“I’m straight up fat! And I know that, you don’t need to fucking whisper it to me. And, y’know, I don’t mind you saying it. Because, y’know, you’re nice. But,” BJ dug his nails into his waist until it stung, “It just, y’know, kinda hurts when other people say it. They’re not so nice.” BJ picked up Lord of the Flies and hugged it against his chest. “I wish I was a tennis racket.”

Jacques smiled. “That does sound appealing.”

“You don’t get it though,” BJ sighed. “You’re so smart and talented and you actually look like a boy. You’ll never get what it’s like to feel like a part of you’s missing.”

Jacques looked around for someone to share in the pure, ridiculous irony, but the library was empty. “BJ,” he frowned, “There are literally parts of me missing. I was literally born without things I need to live. I learned to walk when I was five. My parents moved all the way to America just for me, just so I could have this-“ He flexed his prosthetic fingers. “The chance at a normal life. I know you can’t pay attention to anything for more than ten seconds, so I will end the story there.”

BJ was leaning heavily on the table, chin resting in his hand and eyes glued to Jacques. “No, no, I like this story,” he said, mesmerised. He and Jacques spoke quite frequently, at least once a week. But usually their interactions were small talk; complaints about homework, gimmicks about teachers, which seniors were cute. No one ever really spoke to BJ about the deep, personal things he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out. He kind of liked it. “Carry on!”

“Oh,” Jacques blushed modestly. “D’accord, uh, so when I was an infant, no uh, a child, I could not make any friends. The other kids were all scared of me; they treated me like a robot.

“It was very hard for me to play tag with them. I could not afford blades to run with and my prosthetics are heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. I spent a lot of time alone, reading in the library or using equipment in the gym. I taught myself how to play sports, lift weights, run and catch with my prosthetics. So when I started high school I was ready. I could fit in with the other kids.”

“Sooo... You’re telling me I should cut my hair, lose weight, and stop trying to kill myself?”

“No.” Jacques paused. “Actually, that last part yes. But no. I’m telling you that life is a steaming pile of horse crap but you can succeed by working hard at something.”

“I’m not good at anything,” BJ moaned.

“And that is okay. That’s why you need to work hard. But these books-“ He wrapped his knuckles against the volumes on the table. “All of these books-“ He gestured around the library. “They’re full of inspiration. Just imagine yourself as the hero and, you never know, maybe something will stick.

“Now.” Jacques stood. “I have a tennis match to go play. I will see you later, BJ.”

“See ya,” BJ mumbled, already half a page into Lord of the Flies. Lots of dead people: y’know he loved it.

“Oh, and-“ Jacques reaches into his pocket, then dropped a cereal bar on the table beside BJ. “For lunch. You should come and sit with me tomorrow, my friend Ginger says your hair is a mess, and she could fix it if you like.”

BJ eyed his tangled hair. He chewed it up with the straighteners each morning, but it didn’t do much good.

“Mm,” he snatched up the cereal bar and hid it in his pocket, before the librarian confiscated it, “I’ll think on it. Thanks, babes.”

Jacques chuckled. “You are so strange. See you tomorrow.”

“Maybe,” BJ responded. He liked Jacques. Jacques made him feel like he was on a rollercoaster. Jacques made him feel like he didn’t want to kill himself. Jacques made him feel like maybe James was kind of a dick, and he shouldn’t have a crush on him anymore. But he wouldn’t sit with him tomorrow. Or ever.

BJ was like a social cancer. Anyone caught sitting with him would lose all their friends, their credibility, their will to live.

BJ liked Jacques, so he was going to stay the hell away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking around, and thanks for reading! Hopefully I'll have a proper chapter soon!

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Congrats if you stuck it out this long!
> 
> I will very likely add another couple of eps, but idk when or exactly which yet.
> 
> I am currently oh so much BJ the Musicsl trash, and my tumblr's everyonewholovesmehasdied if you wanna hmu (even if it's just to say the fic was crap!)


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